いらっしゃいませ！

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Mitsuwa Hokkaido Fair 2009 - Recap

Fresh off the plane from Japan, I dropped off my suitcase and headed straight for Mitsuwa Market and the 2009 Hokkaido Ramen Fair! Yes, I did say ramen fair cuz who really cares about the other stuff (j/k).

Anyway, Ezo Fukuro at the Costa Mesa location was first up with their Shrimp Butter Shio Ramen and their Shio Tanmen. To put it lightly, I wasn't very impressed. The Shrimp Butter Ramen was basically the Tanmen with 3 pieces of shrimp and a half cube of butter. I also thought the butter neutralized a lot of the flavor from the yasai itame. And the noodles in both were starchy and undercooked. If I had to choose one, I'd stick with the Tanmen.

Ramen Shingen, working out of Torrance, was surprisingly better than I had expected. It was light, yet flavorful and gave my tongue a tingly sensation. Oh wait, that was the MSG. The chashu was the highlight--very moist and delicious. The noodles were once again slightly undercooked but I'm sure it would taste much better if I was in Ishikari.

That's all. Forgive me for not adding much detail. I'm still jet lagged.

10 comments:

Uh, random announcement. Not sure if you know this or not but they are planning to open an Ajisen Ramen in the Century City mall!? Wow, I knew ramen was getting yuppy but this takes it to a new level. Here's the only online proof I could find:http://mikeyhateseverything.blogspot.com/2009/09/in-news-ajisen-ramen-comes-to-century.htmlI saw it with my own two eyes tonight.

I totally thought of you when I was at Hokkaido Food Fair yesterday. I went to the Torrance one and had a blast. I found the shio ramen at Shingen to be pretty delicious. I don't usually go for shio flavor but this one was not bad! I agree that chashu was da bomb. I'm a little happy to hear that the butter ramen at the Costa Mesa was not so good because we didn't get to go to that one ... hee hee. I was impressed that, despite all the people looking for a taste of the special ramen, Santouka still had a pretty good amount of people in line!

Welcome back and alas, I was at the Torrance Fair at Mitsuwa -- only the shio ramen was offered there and it was pretty unmemorable (I'd rather spend that money and stomachspace on trying another bowl at Ramen California) -- but I didn enjoy my curry pan and milky ice cream!

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I haven't, but heard they are a lot better and "more Japanese" than the chains outside Japan. Ajisen is originally from Kumamoto and I saw tons of them when I was there. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to try them. I wouldn't dare step into one in the states anymore.